Monthly Archives: April 2015

For a school project Sophie and a friend were required to make a scale model of the Parthenon.

There was some good father/daughter time involved, and a beautiful replica was created. This was at Christmastime.

It is now April.

And we still have the Parthenon.

It migrated around our house, going from the dining room to the living room until finally finding a temporary home under the coffee table.

“We have to do something with the Parthenon,” I finally told Scott.

“Let’s burn it,” he said. “With gasoline.”

“No,” I said.

“With starting fluid.”

“No,” I said.

“With lighters.”

“I can’t use a lighter,” chimed in my 5-year-old son, “Let’s use matches!”

“Who taught you to use matches?” I said.

“Uncle Seth.”

Thanks a lot, dear brother.

So for Family Home Evening (something we do every Monday night) we took a box of matches and commenced the destruction of the Parthenon.

Since we are responsible parents, we also used this as an opportunity to teach the kids how to use a fire extinguisher.

It was pretty exciting for everyone involved, and filled with valuable teaching moments.

We wanted to let the flames consume as much of the Parthenon as possible before we let the kids use the extinguisher, so we let it burn.

There were photos taken, and some merry-making.

The flames rose higher.

And higher.

At one point the merry-making stopped and we all watched the fire with a growing sense of unease.

“Perhaps we should not have done this so close to our house,” I murmured.

“Nah, it will be fine,” said my husband.

When the flames started to melt the aluminum barricade that stood between the Parthenon and our deck I thought this was the perfect time to share a little family history.

“You know . . . ” I said. “The mountains around Malibu often catch on fire, and when my mom was a little girl her dad would sometimes stand on the roof with a hose to wet it down so their house didn’t burn.”

“I think I’ll go get a hose,” said Scott.

Once the side of the house and the deck were hosed down we felt better.

Then we decided it was time for the kids to do their own fire fighting.

Family Night didn’t last too long–maybe 20 minutes at most. By the end the Parthenon was an ashy pile of black ruins. Although it became a little dicey there for a moment, now we have four kids who can wield a fire extinguisher.

First of all Scott and I discovered we were expecting our first babies. Yes, babiez. Then Scott got accepted to a PhD program that was 2,000 miles away (2,103 miles, to be exact). I would leave my full-time library job and all my friends and family in Utah and move to North Carolina where I didn’t know one person in the entire state, and become a full-time mom to twins.

Job change, place change, role change, life change! So exciting! We did not see it as something that would be hard, we saw it as an adventure!

But an unwelcome change was also on its way.

It was during this period of transition that Elder Neal A. Maxwell, one of the living twelve apostles, came to visit our ward (congregation).

Now, for those of you who are not LDS, this is a very significant event. Since we believe in modern-day apostles this is like having Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John walk into your church service. Usually the only time we get to see or hear the apostles is twice a year at a big mega-conference that is broadcast all around the world. Each apostle is loved and respected, and the sounds of their voices are as recognizable to us as the voices of our own family members. This particular apostle, Elder Maxwell, was coming because his granddaughter was in our ward and her son was being blessed, and by some miracle I was asked to give the closing prayer. I lumbered up to the stand with my big twin-belly, gave the prayer, and felt pretty exceptional that I was within winking distance of an apostle.

Soon after that my life took a most unexpected, untimely and unwelcome turn. My father passed away. Yes, you know him. My dad: the firework salesman. The builder of log homes. The creator of Him.

Now all those happy changes we were looking forward to suddenly darkened. My father would never see my babies–neither the two I was carrying or any more that would follow–and I was moving away from a mother who needed me about as much as I needed her.

The next week we travelled up to Idaho for the funeral. The day we got back to our apartment we checked our voice mail and heard a familiar voice:

“Hello? This is Neal Maxwell. I hope I have the right number. I’m trying to reach Chelsea Dyreng. I heard that her father passed away and that she is having twins soon and she moving across the country, and I thought I would call . . . “

Scott and I looked at each other, our eyes humongous. We checked the next message:

“Hello? This is Neal Maxwell . . . again. I’m still trying to get a hold of Chelsea Dyreng. It sounds like you have a lot on your plate right now. I’m sorry I missed you . . . “

Two messages–from an apostle–and I missed him!

I was totally disappointed that I had missed my one chance to speak with a living apostle, so I immediately sat down and wrote him a letter (this was back when people wrote letters), a letter that ended up being much longer than it probably needed to be. But I had to write and tell him all about my dad.

Then, a week or two later I received this in the mail:

(You can see how carefully I opened it . . . )

His letter was wonderful and sincere. How exceptionally kind it was for him to go out of his way–an elderly man, a cancer survivor, a man very busy with many other responsibilities–to take a moment to acknowledge my grief! What was I to him? I was just another church member, one of millions. He didn’t have to do anything for me, there was no benefit in it for him. But he persisted, not just calling me, but leaving multiple messages and then answering my long, circumlocutory letter with a compassionate letter of his own. Who does this?

In the Bible Jesus Christ designated twelve men to be his apostles. Their primary job was to be special witnesses of Christ. It means that they have a duty to tell people about Him. The word apostle means “one who was sent.” It means that they spread the good news and they act in the name of Jesus Christ, doing what he would do if he were here.

It would be enough for the apostles to just speak every six months at conference. It would be enough for them to travel around the world, organizing congregations and training leaders. It would be enough for them to be at the helm of the church, teaching people to be like Christ, but to go out of his way and to actually do something that Christ might have done?

Elder Maxwell passed away a year later. He was 78 years old. I can picture him up in heaven, meeting my dad and telling him, “I already know everything about you, thanks to your very thorough daughter.”

I know I am not the only one who has had an experience like this. If you are LDS I bet you have a story, too. The apostles are always saying good things about us . . . let’s return the favor. #imetanapostle

Perhaps some of you who have been following my blog might not think this seems like the type of book I would write, but don’t worry. When you start reading it you’ll know it was written by me. Sure, it is about village set on the ruins of an ancient Mayan temple, and there is some strange sinister thing that is happening to all the men in the village, and yes, several characters suffer very inglorious and undignified deaths, but I can’t write much of anything without having it center around about kids and women and marriage and all that good stuff, too. Suspenseful, yes. A little creepy, yes. A page turner? For sure. And funny? Of course.

Here are some FAQs:

How do you pronounce the title?

The title is pronounced “say-no-tay”

What is a cenote?

It is a naturally forming limestone well that exposes the aquaphor. They are all over in the Yucatan. The ancient Mayans used them for drinking water and to sacrifice virgins. Now-a-days they are very fun to swim in.

Did you have any say in what the cover was going to look like?

Surprisingly, yes. I gave my publisher several ideas and they totally grabbed one and ran with it. I think they did a great job! It is totally better than anything I imagined.

Whose arm is that?

You’ll have to read the book.

No, really, whose arm is that?

I’m not sure . . . I’ll have to ask the cover designer. Maybe it is hers.

What is your book about?

It is about a marriage, a village, and a secret that waits at the bottom of a pool of water.

When is the release date?

Nov 10

Where will I be able to buy it?

Not sure yet, but so far it will definitely be in the Cedar Fort catalog, Amazon and hopefully Deseret Book.

Thanks for taking a peek! I’ll give you more info, including how to pre-order your own copy, in the months to come!

We’d known each other for a couple of weeks. He was tall, blond, funny, and a little cocky. He told me he was good at tennis. So when he invited me one weekend to watch him play in the annual 4th of July tennis tournament in his hometown I tagged along. I was curious if this guy was actually as good as he said he was.

Of course, I didn’t know anything about tennis. So I sat on bleachers outside the courts, next to his 14-year-old brother who was clearly amused by my vast ignorance. But he was nice and patiently answered my questions and kept me updated on the score. As the tournament progressed I began to see that my date really did seem to excel at this sport. I smiled. I sat up a little straighter. I flipped my hair. If anyone asked me who I was I didn’t bother with my name. I just pointed out to the court and said, “I’m his date.”

But the best was yet to come.

During one match my date jogged up to the chain link fence and said to his little brother in mysterious tennis language, “Watch this. I’m going to ace him on the next serve.”

“What is an ace?” I asked loudly, not wanting to be left out.

Whispering, (because that is what you are supposed to do when you watch tennis) the little brother smiled and said, “Just watch.”

I peered wide-eyed through the fence as my date prepared for his serve by bouncing the ball a few times and casting a piercing stare across the net. Then he tossed the ball up in the air, at the same time bending his knees and pulling back his racket. Time stopped for just a moment as he waited for the ball to make its decent. Then, when the ball was in the perfect spot, he whipped his racket out from behind him and pummeled the ball, hurling it across the court. Before his opponent had a chance to even wet his lips the ball crossed the net, hit the corner of the service box and shot passed him, rattling the fence. Without his opponent even touching the ball, my date had scored.

Then he turned, pointed his racket straight at me and said, “That is an ace.”

Six months later we were married.

Rising in Love

Falling in love was so exciting. Scott was by far the most fascinating person I had ever met. But soon the “falling” part of love quickly got . . . well . . . impractical. Life happens. How are we going to divvy up responsibilities? How do we pay for the things we need and still have something left for things we want? Should we go into debt or wait till we can pay in full? Should we move or should we stay? Then children come along and all of those fun, private “couple-moments” are the first thing to be thrown overboard as each of us is just trying to do our best to keep the ship afloat. When all this is going on, who has time for each other?

In addition to that, those wonderful things that attracted you to each other in the first place can become unbelievably annoying. (“You are going to go play tennis again?”)

That is when you stop falling in love . . . and you start rising.

Falling in love is spontaneous, unexpected, surprising, a little reckless, and oh so easy.

Rising in love is deliberate, thought-out, scheduled, and sometimes very, very hard.

I don’t know why some marriages work and some don’t. I am only an expert on my own marriage (although Scott probably thinks he’s the expert). I don’t think anyone gets married with the expectation that the marriage will fail. At the beginning every bride and groom intends for their marriage to last forever. After all, we are soul mates. Nothing will ever extinguish the love we have for each other. We are bulletproof. Right?

But before you know it there are a zillion bullets zinging toward your marriage every day. Bullets from the outside, bullets from the inside . . . and you realize your marriage is anything but bulletproof. Often it is the small, “every-day” bullets that can do the most damage.

My husband travels a lot. (Leaving me with lots of time to write blog posts.) On this particular trip he was going to be gone over Valentines Day. We had been having some internet issues with the way our phone and internet were set up. Sometimes the internet and phone would both crash and in order to get things working again Scott would unplug a bunch of cords and push some buttons and plug cords back in, blow three times, say the magic words, watch little green lights come on, do the hokey pokey and turn himself around and then the internet would start working again. For some reason I could never get it work, and my greatest concern was that the internet and phone would go out at the very moment one of my kids started choking (or some other catastrophe). I voiced this to him several times. Just before he left Scott handed me a paper of detailed instructions on how to restart the internet should it fail. Then he picked up his suitcase and said as he rushed out the door, “Happy Valentine’s Day. I’m sorry I didn’t get you flowers.”

I held the instructions to my heart. “This is better than flowers,” I said.

We dodged a bullet.

I remember one week when Scott had back-to-back sports activities. One night was church basketball, the next night was doubles tennis (mixed!) then he got up early and rode his bike with friends, then that night there was another tennis match. Meanwhile, I was languishing at home with three girls under three, gulping for some respite like a dying goldfish stranded on a counter gulps for air. Then came the last straw. He came home from school, went to put on a new type of sports outfit, grabbed a new type of sports paraphernalia, turned to me and said, “Do you have any cash, Mom?”

Ah . . . Mom?

Well, that was the end of his sporting events for the week. He felt so bad that Saturday he surprised me with a light box he made himself that I could use for my art projects.

We dodged another bullet.

Then there was the time I was a week overdue with my fifth child and I found out I had contracted lice. Yes, you read that right: LICE. In my HAIR. “The world is ending!” I told Scott. But he helped me wash everything in the house and then he sat on the bench behind me and pulled every nit out of my very long hair. It was not romantic. But it was true love.

Another bullet dodged . . . which was a good thing, since that night we had a baby.

There are other “rising in love” stories, most of which will only ever be known to Scott and me. And I know there will be many, many more in the future . . . since we have a lot more rising to do.

Connected at the Core

After we had been married for a while one of the teenagers in our church youth program asked her mother a perplexing question, “Why did Brother and Sister Dyreng get married? They have nothing in common.”

When it comes to the important things, Scott and I are connected at the core. As for the things we don’t have in common–the things that make us opposites–well, that just keeps life refreshing.

Despite what you may read or hear otherwise, marriage is still the best place to find happiness, the best place to give children the best odds for success, and the best place to develop selflessness. It is hard to rise by yourself.

(Click here for a short video that shows a heart-stopping example of what I mean.)

More and more I am discovering that the key to success in marriage can be summed up in one word: generosity.

Giving what is expected, and then giving more. And when that happens, marriage isn’t something that you are working hard to hold together . . . the marriage is what holds everything else together.

So there is no such thing as a bulletproof marriage. And that is good, since it keeps us on our toes.